Chapter 10
The following spring, Leah and I went to the airport together.
We were flying to watch Mariah speak at a student engineering conference. Jordan was presenting a project there too, and the foundation had helped pay for his travel.
At the gate, one of Leah’s twins asked whether we had the right seats.
I showed him our passes.
“We do. Want to find them with me?”
He took my hand.
On the plane, he checked the numbers above the seats and announced each one until we reached our row. Leah apologized to the passengers who smiled around us. I told her to let him finish.
“He’s being careful,” I said.
“I wonder where he gets that.”
We settled in. The flight attendant brought juice for the children and coffee for us. I held my cup while I thought of how different this trip felt from the one that had brought Evelyn into my life.
I knew where the foundation’s money had gone. I knew what had been recovered, and I knew the board would keep reporting on what it spent. Evelyn and Graham had lost the authority they used to divert it and were bound to repay what they owed.
Most of all, I knew Leah and I could speak to each other about Dad without either of us having to carry the memories alone.
At the conference, Jordan stood before a crowded room and explained a small device his team had built to make apartment buildings use less power. His voice shook at first. Then someone asked a question he knew how to answer, and he smiled.
Leah gripped my arm.
“Dad would have loved him.”
“He would have asked for the plans.”
“He would have asked if Jordan had eaten lunch first.”
She was right.
Mariah met us afterward. She introduced Jordan and told him Dad had helped her finish school years before he received his own scholarship.
I watched him realize he was part of a story bigger than one award.
“Thank you,” he said to us.
“Keep doing your work,” I told him. “That’s what the support is for.”
When we returned home, Leah suggested dinner at Dad’s house. The twins ran straight to the garden. The tomato plants were growing unevenly, some taller than the stakes we had given them.
We cooked in the kitchen where Dad used to leave notes on the refrigerator. Leah had saved one that said, Marcus, call your sister. It had made us laugh and cry when we found it.
She put it back on the refrigerator that night.
“You don’t need reminding anymore,” she said.
“I’m keeping it anyway.”
After dinner, the twins wanted a story about Grandpa. I told them how he once showed up at my school science fair with a box of spare batteries for everyone’s projects. He had brought too many, then given the rest to the teacher.
“Was he a scientist?” one twin asked.
“No. He just didn’t want anyone’s project to stop because a battery ran out.”
Leah looked at me across the room. We both recognized him in that small act.
When the children fell asleep on the sofa, I helped carry them to the car. Leah hugged me in the driveway.
“See you Sunday?” she asked.
“You’ll see me before that. I promised to help with the garden.”
“You did.”
She drove away, and I stayed outside for a moment. Dad’s house was quiet behind me. Inside were his letters, Leah’s laughter from dinner, and two small plates still waiting by the sink.
I went back in to wash them.
On the refrigerator, Dad’s note caught my eye again.
I took out my phone and sent Leah a message.
I’m home. Love you.
Her answer came before I finished drying the first plate.
Love you too.
May you like
I set the phone beside Dad’s note and opened the window above the sink. From there I could see the garden and the little stakes we had put beside the tomatoes.
There would be more work to do in the morning. Leah and the children would come, and I would be ready when they did.
